Structures (e.g., homes, hotels, motels, office buildings, etc.) contain devices designed to provide comfortable living conditions. Such devices can, for example, control temperature, lighting, ventilation, and/or humidity, among others. A person's comfort within a structure can include different operations of these devices depending on user preferences in various contexts.
Some previous approaches to providing comfort in a structure seek to control devices within the structure using one or more software applications (“apps”). In some approaches, each device can be controlled by its own app. In other approaches, an aggregator app can be used to control several devices.
In approaches where each device is controlled by a respective app, users may need to download a large number of such apps and individually configure them, leading to frustration. In approaches where a single app is used to control several devices, users may still need to adjust each device individually to provide a desired comfort preference. For example, a user's notion of comfort is not simply limited to changing the setpoint of a thermostat. Comfort can be defined by many variables, such as temperature, humidity, airflow, light levels, etc. Previous approaches where a single app is used to control several devices may not provide a mechanism to treat comfort in an integrative manner.